I'm a bit surprised Relic didn't keep Homeworld. Not sure if any of the original team is still there, but at least they have a stake in the legacy... I'm sure someone else *could* do a decent job with the IP, but e.g. small studios wanting to do a mobile port do not give me hope. (How would you do *anything* in Homeworld with touch-only control???)

I was surprised to see Risen 2 and Dead Island on their list of games. Deep Silver is apparently the Publishing label they used for releasing video games, such as Dead Island, which was published by Deep Silver and developed by Techland.

[Edit Notes: I original posted that Deep Silver was the developer of Dead Island. I misread the information. My edits are in regards to this new understanding of the information]

I would dearly love to see Homeworld picked up by a team that wants to continue the series. If that were to happen, we might even see the older titles show up on GOG.

I just hope that whoever picks up Homeworld continues development for the PC as well.

Check out their indiegogo... the $100,000 goal is to release them for free on steam/gog.

I would kill for Homeworld 3, but that pledge drive looks all sorts of stupid. That team doesn't look like they have any relevant experience, and the funding levels look like they were just tossed up there because they looked neat. When a plan involves a funding level that just opens up the idea that they'll explore getting a game produced, and another level that supposedly "proves" to some unnamed other people that there's a desire to make a new game, you should get a good chuckle, then walk away.

I'd MUCH rather an established and competent developer get their hands on this IP, rather than a few fans grab it through crowdsourcing, flail about with it for 6 months, and then realize that making a quality game involves more than just some money and love.

I would kill for Homeworld 3, but that pledge drive looks all sorts of stupid. That team doesn't look like they have any relevant experience, and the funding levels look like they were just tossed up there because they looked neat. When a plan involves a funding level that just opens up the idea that they'll explore getting a game produced, and another level that supposedly "proves" to some unnamed other people that there's a desire to make a new game, you should get a good chuckle, then walk away.

I'd MUCH rather an established and competent developer get their hands on this IP, rather than a few fans grab it through crowdsourcing, flail about with it for 6 months, and then realize that making a quality game involves more than just some money and love.

That was my immediate concern when I read that a (very) small group that I didn't know anything about wanted to pick up the license. Homeworld 3 would be great, but only if it's done *right*. Maybe TeamPixel can do that, but I don't know enough about them to gain any significant amount of confidence in that.

Wow, so buying up Relic didn't automatically come with all their game IP/licenses? Damn. And here I was hoping under Sega, they'd be able to produce more games they wanted to make, like Homeworld. I imagine that license is separate from the Relic purchase, but is there any information on how much it is?

Maybe my understanding of IP law is off, but how can WWE be up for grabs? Doesn't World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. own the rights to that IP, and just licenses THQ to make the video game? Or is there a separate IP for the game itself? Or are we talking about someone else buying the license from THQ (which would presumably require WWE Inc.'s approval)?

Maybe my understanding of IP law is off, but how can WWE be up for grabs? Doesn't World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. own the rights to that IP, and just licenses THQ to make the video game? Or is there a separate IP for the game itself? Or are we talking about someone else buying the license from THQ (which would presumably require WWE Inc.'s approval)?

The latter.

The Warhammer 40k licence is NOT mentioned with Relic, whereas the others are, so it is not at all a given that Sega has it.

It's not unknown for a licence to contain a clause that states in the event of the licensee going out of business that the licence reverts to the licensor, so it is possible that there's no more licence to sell and GW can just go and licence Warhammer to anyone they like from scratch at this point.

Maybe my understanding of IP law is off, but how can WWE be up for grabs? Doesn't World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. own the rights to that IP, and just licenses THQ to make the video game? Or is there a separate IP for the game itself? Or are we talking about someone else buying the license from THQ (which would presumably require WWE Inc.'s approval)?

The latter.

The Warhammer 40k licence is NOT mentioned with Relic, whereas the others are, so it is not at all a given that Sega has it.

It's not unknown for a licence to contain a clause that states in the event of the licensee going out of business that the licence reverts to the licensor, so it is possible that there's no more licence to sell and GW can just go and licence Warhammer to anyone they like from scratch at this point.

THQ didn't have that in their clause with South Park, which is why South Park asked the bankruptcy court to block a possible sale unless South Park Studios was fine with it.

It could also be that the license simply expired and hadn't been renegotiated yet.

Edit: I'm curious if Double Fine was able to buy the rights back to their THQ-published games like Costume Quest and Stacking.

Maybe my understanding of IP law is off, but how can WWE be up for grabs? Doesn't World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. own the rights to that IP, and just licenses THQ to make the video game? Or is there a separate IP for the game itself? Or are we talking about someone else buying the license from THQ (which would presumably require WWE Inc.'s approval)?

The latter.

The Warhammer 40k licence is NOT mentioned with Relic, whereas the others are, so it is not at all a given that Sega has it.

It's not unknown for a licence to contain a clause that states in the event of the licensee going out of business that the licence reverts to the licensor, so it is possible that there's no more licence to sell and GW can just go and licence Warhammer to anyone they like from scratch at this point.

Well, considering SEGA recently got hold of the WarHammer franchise from GW, it may not be too far fetched that they'll be the ones to get the 40K license as well.

I would dearly love to see Homeworld picked up by a team that wants to continue the series. If that were to happen, we might even see the older titles show up on GOG.

I just hope that whoever picks up Homeworld continues development for the PC as well.

Check out their indiegogo... the $100,000 goal is to release them for free on steam/gog.

Best news I've heard all day.

Problem for them is that it's a pipe dream. Something it doesn't look like they've even considered in the price is actually PAYING for the license. The Homefront license went for over $500k yesterday. I don't know if the Homeworld license would be worth more or less, yet I hardly think it's anything close to the first funding level of $50,000. More like substantially above that. So their little funding request seems to have an initial fatal flaw of not actually getting the rights to the franchise. Minor little detail there.

I would contribute a decent amount of money to a team that simply wanted to buy the Homeworld IP and release it on Steam/GOG. I'm not going to contribute to this one though, because I think it would be a waste to fund that group's attempt to bring Homeworld to mobile devices (WTF?) let alone a full fledged sequel. No offense to those guys, but I don't think a couple of web developers could do that franchise justice. This all assumes that they could even get the license for $50k like they suggest, which I seriously doubt.

I'm really interested to see what happens to that property though. Does anyone know what would happen to it if nobody made a credible bid?

I'm assuming the way it worked when THQ bought out a developer, the names, assets, and IP of the studios became the property of THQ. Thus, when THQ went broke and got auctioned, it was broken up into those pieces - you could be 'Volition', but essentially what you get is the name and staff. If you wanted Saints Row, that's a separate sale. It would make sense that if you were interested in seeing a franchise continue, you'd land the studio and then try like hell to get the IP that originally belonged to that studio.

Let's hope the studios end up in better hands and don't get destroyed by brain drain.

I picked up the Humble THQ Bundle, but so far I've only played SRIII, so I hardly know if I should be sad about the IP that hasn't been bought yet.

The real question is, am I a horrible person because when I did the Humble split, I gave THQ nothing?